apt-get now supports a 'mirror' method that will automatically select a good mirror based on your location. Putting:
deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt precise main restricted universe multiverse
deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt precise-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt precise-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt precise-security main restricted universe multiverse
on the top in your /etc/apt/sources.list file should be all that is needed to make it automatically pick a mirror for you based on your geographical location.
Lucid (10.04), Maverick (10.10), Natty (11.04), And Oneiric (11.10) users can replace precise with the appropriate name.
The CD repository and software repository are two distinct components (they even have separate Launchpad pages: cdmirrors and archivemirrors). Therefore, mirroring them are two distinct tasks. Further, while the various flavours have different folders on the CD repository, they share a software repository. So you can selectively mirror the images per flavour, but not the software. For the software repository, you can selectively mirror based on:
- release (
trusty, precise, etc.)
- architecture (
amd64, i386, etc.)
- package type (binary [
deb] vs source [deb-src])
- channels (
trusty, trusty-updates, trusty-backports, etc.)
- sections (
main, multiverse, etc.)
To mirror the software repository, use apt-mirror.
apt-mirror is configured using /etc/apt/mirror.list. It has a format very similar to sources.list. The configuration file installed by the package has a few commented out options which list their defaults. If you wish, you can uncomment and change them.
To mirror a repository, you need to add a line to mirror.list like you would for sources.list:
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main multiverse restricted universe
The default is to mirror only the host's architecture, so if you're on a 64-bit Ubuntu, only amd64 will be mirrored. You need to add another line of the form:
deb-i386 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main multiverse restricted universe
And for source packages:
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main multiverse restricted universe
If you're looking for a reasonably complete mirror, these lines would be the minimum (I would also recommend -updates channel):
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main multiverse restricted universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-security main multiverse restricted universe
deb-i386 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main multiverse restricted universe
deb-i386 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-security main multiverse restricted universe
Finally, you need to add a clean line so that packages no longer available in the repository are filtered for removal:
clean http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
Say your variables are thus (the defaults):
set base_path /var/spool/apt-mirror
set mirror_path $base_path/mirror
set skel_path $base_path/skel
set var_path $base_path/var
set cleanscript $var_path/clean.sh
Then:
- The repository will be mirrored to
$mirror_path/parent-hostname/directory (so /var/spool/apt-mirror/mirror/us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu)
- The
clean.sh (which will be a set of rm commands to delete obsolete packages and directories) will be /var/spool/apt-mirror/var/clean.sh.
- The logs will go to
/var/spool/apt-mirror/var.
The apt-mirror package installs a cron job (/etc/cron.d/apt-mirror), which you should edit to enable (by uncommenting the line containing /usr/bin/apt-mirror). You should also add a cron job for running clean.sh (I run it weekly).
Of course, you should replace http://us.archive.ubuntu.com./ubuntu with whichever mirror you prefer.
Best Answer
You might want to use apt-proxy instead of a full mirror, since it will then take considerably less space and time to get set up:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AptProxy
You would then need to update the repository lists for anyone wanting to use your proxy.